Zach Fennell
Air Force Academy....pilot instructor, parachute jumper

Kelly Gregson
designer for Jim Carey, Sat. Night Live, and some of the Soap shows.

Travis Reindl
is the Program Director for Jobs for the Future in Boston, MA.  a national research and advocacy organization whose mission is to ensure that by age 26, all Americans have some form of education beyond high school and are in or on their way to a family-supporting career.

Neil Fennell
Theatre, musician, works in lucrative ad agency in MPLS right now

Dustin Kirk
has done SD website for over 12 years and has worked in the media room at Global Finals since 1997.  He is a graduate of Rensler Tech Institute in NY and has recently  finished a Masters program  He now works for Hewlett Packard in San Diego....getting to create new things for HP

Seth Fisher
lived in Japan and was a famous cartoon artist.   He died in a climbing accident in Japan...his wife and mother did a book signing at the big comic book conference in SD in 2007.

Bradley and Chris Kehr
participated in the organization in Custer and now lives in Oregon.  They are pilots and engineers.  Their parents were incredible team mangers and their children have become great leaders too.

Jeannette Broderson
from Elkton....is now an incredible English teacher

Jennifer Schleining
is a horse/large animal vet.

Alisha Schleining
is an architect.

Amy Rosario
is an archaeologist in NE...new dinosaur dig 

Andy Ries
graduated from HS in 2001.  He was involved with OM starting in 1993-94.  He and his teams went to World/Global Finals twice.  He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering, worked with Boeing and is currently working on his Masters in Mechanical Engineering.

Dana Ries
graduated from HS in 2001.  She was involved with OM/DI starting in 1993-94.  She and her teams went to World/Global Finals three times.  She has a BS in Biology and is currently enrolled in the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, MO.

Ross Ries
graduated from HS in 2004.  He was involved with OM/DI starting in 1995.  He is currently in the United States Navy working as an Ordinance Man.  He is stationed in Japan on the USS Kitty Hawk.

Adrian Ries
is a senior in high school and will graduate in 2008.  This is his twelfth year of involvement with OM/DI.  He and his teams have been to Globals three times. After high school  he is hoping to pursue a music or theatrical arts degree.

Erin B. Harmon
got his Ph.D. from Stanford University and is now a research scientist with Sanford Research in Sioux Falls, SD.  He gives OM a lot of credit for getting him through his shyness enough to make presentations before groups of colleagues.

Elliot T. Harmon
has an MFA from California College of the Arts.  He is employed by a not-for-profit organization in San Francisco, but his love is writing poetry.  OM helped him to find outlets for his creativity.

Andrew Durbin
is an associate in a public works engineering firm in Baltimore, MD.  He has done high-level security work for the U.S. Government.

John Jordre
has taught elementary school, but he is currently caring for his toddler-age daughter and taking computer classes, while his wife Becca practices physical therapy.

Ellie Lundin
is in her second year of college at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD, studying Music Education, and aspires to be a band director.  She spends her summers touring the United States as part of the Blue Stars World Class Drum and Bugle Corps.  Ellie also stays involved in DI as a volunteer.

Lori Schoenerman Richards
was team member for 7 years at Elkton, SD and have been appraising in SD for about 11 years. She says she uses her creative problem-solving skills every day in her job. She is a graphic designer for Northwest Iowa Community College and always looking for new ideas and BRAINSTORMING every day!!! She learned that no idea is a bad idea and it might lead to the next 10 ideas which give an awesome result. She was named Employee of  the Year. She says she is a lifetime “DIer”!!

Lynae (Schoeneman) Kinner and Nathan Kinner:
Lynae and Nathan were teammates for several years and now are married.  She is an actuarial analyst in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Nathan works as a federal tax accountant for a large firm in Minneapolis. While our careers don't sound like major outlets for creativity, our experience in creative problem solving comes into play everyday, sometimes without us even realizing it!

Peter McMahon
Peter McMahon, an AEM for SD and an Alum of the program, works as a manufacturing engineer at Daktronics.  The company produces big screens and scoreboards for football stadiums . . .among other things. McMahon says:  “DI has helped me develop my team building skills which I use extensively in coordinating continuous improvement activities with cross functional teams.  Being able to work in a team environment is absolutely essential to my work.”

Dan McMahon, DGR Engineers
During middle and high school, Dan spent four years in OM/DI building balsa wood structures and other creative devices. This naturally led into studying engineering at South Dakota State University. Throughout studies at SDSU and his current career as a consulting engineer, he continually relied upon the basic creative, analytical, and problem solving skills that developed during my formative years in OM/DI.

Travis Reindl (South Dakota; participant: 1982-1990; judge: 1995; coach 1996-97)

When I joined my first Olympics of the Mind (one of DI’s forerunners) team 25 years ago, I could not have imagined the profound effect that experience would have on my life.  I had started on a journey that would include nine years as a competitor, two years as a coach, one year as a judge, and a scholarship that would help me attend the college of my dreams.  But most importantly, that journey would offer priceless lessons that have shaped me as a student, a professional, and a person.

I learned about teamwork.  The afternoons, evenings, and Saturdays spent painting sets, laughing and arguing over scripts, and practicing, practicing, practicing taught me much about pulling my own weight, giving a little to get a little, and looking out for others.  Every day of my professional life now involves managing and contributing to teams, and the simple things I learned in school gyms and church basements through OM prepared me to be an effective team leader and member.

I learned about tolerance and the power of diversity.  Through OM, I competed with, coached, and judged people that were very different from me, whether in terms of race/ethnicity, academic achievement, or socioeconomic status.  Those experiences opened my eyes to the world around me, and taught me that beauty, creativity, and talent comes in all shapes and sizes, and knows no income or racial lines.  As an adult, I have experienced all kinds of people—from AIDS orphans in Africa to the first lady of this nation—and I have tried to learn something from every single one of them.

I learned to think on my feet.  Who can forget the famous (or infamous) spontaneous problems that caused all of us to sweat bullets in regional, state, and world competitions?  (One of my favorites is: “Your problem is to make a rhyme using a name or species of an animal.”)  These days I travel nearly 100,000 miles per year and speak to reporters from around the corner and around the world.  Because of all those spontaneous problems, I have successfully navigated my way through airline chaos and brutal interviews on live national television.

I learned to question my assumptions.  I’ll never forget the spontaneous problem where we had to transport an egg from one point to another without dropping it, using each of a set of tools only once.  It was then that I began to realize that even though a tool (like a paper clip) was presented to me in a certain way, I didn’t have to use it in the way it was presented to me (I bent mine and made a little caddy).  If I hadn’t learned to question myself and look beyond conventional wisdom at the tender age of 10, I’m not sure I would have survived Philosophy 201 at the University of Notre Dame, or become a policy analyst for a national organization.

I learned about the power of the possible.  As a sixth grader, I approached a long-term problem thinking, “There is no way I can make it through maze full of obstacles with only non-verbal signals to guide me.”  With the help of talented teammates, I did, and we won our way to the state competition.  That experience helped me to push my intellectual, physical, and emotional limits later in life, going to a university far from home and full of people much smarter and more worldly than me, studying abroad, taking on jobs that others said were impossible (or even foolish), and loving people when others said I should cut my losses.

It has been an amazing journey, one that continues.  For this kid from a small town in Western South Dakota, the organization that has become DI opened an incredible world of adventure and possibility.  The real heroes of my story are my mother, Janet, and Cozy Dorton, who made it possible for me and so many of my friends and classmates to begin this journey more than two decades ago.  As alumni, we must do our part to make sure that our children have this amazing opportunity.